DICK BLICK - YOU ROCK!

I am so excited! My first art order of the year has arrived, and in it is the very first set of expensive Kolinsky brushes that I have owned! 


The brushes are from a company called da Vinci, an amazing manufacturer of quality brushes. When working in watercolor, you can paint an eyelash with these brushes, as they come to such a beautiful point. But wait! That's not all! You can also paint a wide swath with these brushes just as readily as the eyelash! I am really looking forward to working with a quality brush after so many years of fighting the brush as well as the paint! :-)


As you can see, the brushes are laying on top of my new Incredible Art Board. It is so light weight I can hardly tell I am carrying something in my hand! I can stretch my watercolor paper on this beautiful surface, and carry it around with me, or go plein air without any trouble at all! Again - I can hardly wait to begin a new painting with these awesome tools.


Other than some paints that I ordered, the other BIG item is my new mat cutting machine. This is really wonderful as it will make everything easier for my framer when he does my watercolor paintings, pencil drawings and pastel paintings. And I DO want to keep my framer happy. After all, he lives with me....


I know I have exclaimed the praise of Dick Blick Art Supplies before, but I must do so again. I received notification via email this morning that my order had shipped from the States yesterday. It arrived at noon, my time, in Calgary, Canada today. I am so impressed with the speed and efficiency of this company, the selection of art supplies and resources that they have available on line, as well as the decent prices they offer. I have not found another company that I like better. Dick Blick - you rock!!!

Ampersand Panels

My new order from Dick Blick art supplies has just arrived - and in it some new products from Ampersand that I plan to experiment with. One is the Aquabord shown here. I bought the 2" deep cradled panel (which is really deep!) in 2 sizes - one is 8" x 8" and the other is an 8" x 10". What I like about this format is that I won't need to frame the watercolor painting after it is finished. 
I have also purchased Birgit O"Connor's dvd on how to frame watercolor without glass. Birgit was one of the first watercolor artists that I bought an instructional video from, many years ago now. I still think she is an amazing watercolor artist, who developed her own method of doing large watercolors in (what I see as) the style of Georgia O'Keefe.

The second product I bought is the Clayboard, again in the deep cradle so that I don't need to frame it. This one is a clay base - which will be much different from the gesso I am used to using - even on their gessobords. The Claybord is great for acrylic, which is what I intend to use it for.

I also got a couple of new Silver Brush Black Velvet Brushes which I absolutely LOVE. I now have 5 of them - and use them almost exclusively for my watercolors. They are not the cheapest brushes - but they really hold a point and LOTS of water/pigment! Sooooo, with all these new things to play with, I anticipate a great week  in the studio. :-)
 I'll let you know what I think of each of these products as I use them.